How much will President-elect Trump's Department of Government Efficiency change the country's federal government? Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are revealing new details about how it will work and how long it will take.
Under President-elect Trump's proposal, Musk and Ramaswamy would not work in an official government capacity.
Instead, the proposed Department of Government Efficiency would work outside of the federal government and advise the White House and the Office of Management and Budget on how to move forward.
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Musk and Ramaswammy wrote that the department "intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions."
Because that implies layoffs, Musk and Ramaswammy said "Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE's goal is to help support their transition into the private sector."
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In order to decrease the federal workforce even further, the pair says they intend to end telework, even though the union representing federal workers strongly supports telework for the current workforce. Musk and Ramaswamy says ending that would result in resignations and early retirements, something they say they would welcome.
Legal challenges are expected with nearly all of these proposals and Congress is expected to have a final say. But Ramaswamy and Musk believe that with a conservative-leaning Supreme Court they will ultimately prevail.
